Falling in?
by IceMiceTN
Summary: Hermione has a dream the night of the Yule Ball, and comes to a scary conclusion.


I had a dream once. And it wasn't a nightmare, though to anyone else who didn't know him, it would be. It was a very complicated dream, and I'm afraid that only I would be able to grasp the point.

It was the night of the Yule Ball.

Right after that dreadful fight.

I remember how I felt, yelling at him. Those words had been jumping around inside of me the whole night. I wasn't blind. Of course he was jealous. What else? Jealous of Viktor. But why? It's just me. His best friend. I didn't understand. Things were getting too complicated for just our fourth year. I had lots of things on my mind, and he was getting on my nerves. So I just shoved it far into the back of my head.

But obviously not far enough.

I hope he took my words to heart. And maybe he could get a clue about his emotions, because everyone else has. In those last few seconds before I left the room, I saw the horror in his eyes. It almost gave me hope that he wouldn't be so unaware of his own feelings next time. He can be so infuriating sometimes!

It beats me how I even got to sleep that night. I was a sight to see. And what made me even angrier was how Lavender seemed to float in, a few hours after I had stormed up the stairs, my hair falling apart like a faulty deck of Exploding Snap. I had watched her, through a hole in my curtains, gracefully pull the pins from her hair, humming a soft tune and gossiping to Parvati about how great a kisser Seamus was.

But listening to their mindless chatter must have made me instantly tired, because I soon, unlike Lavender, ripped out the pins that had gotten lost in the jungle that was my hair, changed into my pajamas, and wrapped myself in the warm covers of my bed, twisting and turning, trying to find something _else_ to think about. My mind strayed from Harry to Viktor, to the Potions essay that was due at the beginning of our next semester. But lingering in the back of my head were what I really wanted to ponder, the harsh words I had hissed at him.

I let myself cringe at the thought of tomorrow morning, at breakfast. What would he say? What would _I_ say? I made a vow to myself to pretend like nothing had happened, like what we had just been yelling about was whether there would be rain tomorrow.

Their words became slurred, and soon, I heard no more about Daives and Delacour. Silence filled the dormitory, and I almost delighted to realize my eyes were drooping, and that now it was me who was slowly drifting off into sleep.

At first, it was Viktor and Me. We were dancing slowly to the beat of the music. I had smiled up at him and he had returned the smile to me. But suddenly I felt the ground get soft and wet. I looked down, and I was barefoot in the grass. Gazing around me, everything was too foggy. All I could see was…

Ron? But, I thought…Viktor. Where had he gone? And suddenly, Ron looked at me with an expression that made my heart tear itself apart. With his soft blue eyes, he asked me how I could betray him, how could I go with Viktor? He reached a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed, like he always did when he was faced with a difficult question. I tried to answer him—I tried to tell him that I didn't mean to hurt him that way. I only meant to have a good time. But he had taken off, running. All I could see were his long bare feet in front of me, while I struggled to catch up. The grass was too cold on my toes, and the fog was closing in on me, when suddenly…

His feet were gone. They were replaced with a circular black nothing. I didn't want to call it a hole, because it seemed there was no end. There were no words to describe what it was that Ron had fallen into. I kneeled at the edge of the…whatever, trying to decide whether to stay here, on the cold wet grass, where I had firm, promising ground beneath my feet, or to jump after him, to plunge into uncertainty and to trust him that I would be okay. I looked behind me and saw Viktor, his hand reaching out for me, then looked below me and saw Ron's crestfallen face getting smaller and smaller as he kept falling.

And then it was all clear to me, like it always had been. Without a second glance at Viktor, I did a cannonball into the bottomless pit. Ron's expression completely changed as his face got bigger and bigger, until I could count every freckle on his face, and then, all I could see was orange…

I groaned and shoved Crookshanks off of my head, and lightly placed him next to me on the bed. Analyzing the dream, I wiped away the many tears I had unknowingly shed during the night. Then I closed my red-rimmed eyes.

What was it supposed to mean? It was all so vague…and just what was it I had dived into? For I felt as if I were still falling. The stomach feeling hadn't worn off, yet the maroon curtains before me were standing still, and as I planted my feet on the wood floor, the dizzy feeling returned also. Was I coming down with something? Maybe I should see Madam Pomfrey? Or did I just need a bit more dreamless sleep, without Crookshanks rubbing his large orange stomach in my face? The question nagged me for several minutes as I lay back in bed. And then the horrifying answer came to me, like a whisper from my muggle past. I remembered movies of mermaids and princesses trapped in castles with talking utensils…girls entranced to sleep for hundreds of years before their prince charming came to kiss them…poisonous apples, and magic lamps, and glass slippers…

The answer didn't bring the thrill of learning something new, or feeling triumphant at succeeding at another mind trap. It jumped out at me, like an angry Skrewt awaiting its breakfast. I had slipped up this time. It had been sneaking up on me for quite some time, and my punishment was the shock of it all coming at me in full force. For a moment, my heart stopped as I realized what this all meant. And for the second time, I silently predicted breakfast, and suddenly I had never felt so satiated in my entire life.

Yes, I would try my hardest to pretend as if life was going on just as it had before last night, before all of this Yule Ball rubbish had occurred. But the question was, how? Because, as I slowly realized, as I sat up in bed and waited for the blow to hit me, last night I had fallen in love with Ronald Weasley.


End file.
